OLD TOWN, Maine — Cross country runners from Houlton joined with other schools from across the Penobscot Valley Conference to compete in the league championship Saturday at Old Town High School.
A total of 25 schools were represented in the event, which featured a course of rocky woods trails. John Hassett of Georges Stevens Academy was the top boys runner with a time of 16:26.20, while Orono’s Kassidy Dill was the top female runner with a time of 19:33.70.
According to Houlton coach Chris Rines, the PVC runs both the Class B and C divisions together in one race and awards the top 20 individuals regardless of class before separating the results for the team scores. The JV races are run together as well and awarded together without this separation.
“We had some very good results and I’m happy to say all of our runners not only improved their times on this course from just three weeks ago but several of them also hit their season or career personal bests,” Rines said. “This is a good indication that we are starting to peak at the right time of the season.”
Houlton had runners crack into that top 20 as Isaiah Brown claimed sixth in the overall results for the boys, while Rylee Warman took home 10th with her best time of the season in the girls’ race.
“We had big drops in time out of first-year runners Jeremy Cook, Isia Bouchard, Timothy Youngfellow, and Nolan Jacobs, but the greatest improvement on the day belonged to sophomore Lauren Swimm, who ran nearly five minutes faster than her previous outing on this course,” he said.
The Northern Maine Regional Class C championship is slated for this coming Saturday, with the boys’ race starting at 12:10 p.m. and the girls tentatively running at 12:45pm. Both the regional and state championships will be hosted at Troy Howard Middle School in Belfast.
The individual Houlton girls’ results were as follows: 6, Warman, 21:06.80; 24, Alyssa Abbotoni, 24:25.40; 29, Victoria Holmes, 25:15.70; 47, Kate Newman, 31:16.40; 53, Mikayla Fitzpatrick, 37:34.60; and 50JV, Lauren Swimm, 33:16.77.
The individual boys’ results were: 6, Brown, 17:41.80; 33, Jeremy Cook, 21:22.50;
51, Tim Glatter, 23:59.30; 52, Isia Bouchard, 24:14.70; 56, Timothy Youngfellow, 25:55.70; and 50JV, Nolan Jacobs 26:58.50.
